Napa Valley North
BC's Okanagan Valley desert blooms with wineries.
Dateline: Monday, August 23, 2010
by Penney Kome
Even if you have heard that there are some wineries in the Okanagan Valley, it's still a surprise to arrive there and discover that there are 120 established wineries in operation, with more popping up all the time. In fact, the Okanagan is full of surprises, from the size of Lake Okanagan (135 km long, 5 km wide and up to 232 km deep) in the north, to the southern end, where the border town of Osoyoos occupies the northern tip of the Sonora desert which extends right through the US to Mexico.
Four lanes of Highway 97 roll smoothly upon a platform halfway between towering cliffs above and steep slopes down to the water, alongside a chain of fifteen lakes that stretches from Kelowna to the US border, connecting eleven towns and cities, each with its own distinctive character. Total driving distance from the top to the bottom of the map, without any stops, would be less than two hours. An estimated 350,000 people live in this corridor, as of 2009.
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Any temptation to bicycle between shops is quickly quashed by the urge to acquire.
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Above the highway, a few trees and houses perch on rocky ledges among sere brown grass. Below, endless fields of deep green fruit orchards and vineyards unfold on all sides, right down to the sparkling blue water's edge. You have to get up close to see the coveys of comical little quail scurrying among the vines.
"BC Cherries" roadside stands are familiar sights in the Western provinces. Here the "BC Cherries" trucks are parked beside the farms that grow the fruit. One orchard can produce several different varieties of cherries from June through August. Peach and plum season starts in July, so in August countless fruit stands offer tree-ripened peaches, including softball sized succulent fruit that feel firm to the touch but are so juicy and sweet that they are practically natural sorbets — if you can imagine eating a sorbet from your hand. Apples and pears come ripe in September.
Since the 1990s, when the BC government changed its laws to permit "estate wineries" [ie, producing fewer than 100,000 case lots per year], new landowners have been ripping out orchards and replanting with grapevines bearing names like Gerwurztraminer, Cabernet Sauvignon, Riesling, and Syrah.
Large and small wineries have sprung up throughout the Valley, turning the area into Napa Valley North, opening up a whole new dimension of the tourism and hospitality industry. All wineries that offer wines for sale have earned their VQA (Vintners Quality Alliance) designation, which is the Canadian Appellation of Origin regulatory system. Most provide tasting rooms and patios for dining; many now have bistros and some have fine dining.
Any temptation to bicycle between shops is quickly quashed by the urge to acquire. The unwary taster may end up with more than one case of assorted bottles of fine limited-production wines that are not available anywhere else — although the premium prices do act as a deterrent.
Some winery names are familiar, such as Inniskillin, Jackson-Triggs, Tinhorn Creek, and Mission Hill. The big wineries can be impressive in size and ambition.
Perched high above Kelowna, Mission Hill's public space looks like a California seminary, with massive tan stucco buildings, a four-story bell tower, breathtaking scenery, daily tours to show off the vintages from five different vineyards, and Terrace restaurant which overlooks the vineyard below, complete with overhead vaporizers that gently spray cooling mist to ameliorate the summer heat.
Similarly, the Burrowing Owl winery offers a resort, spa and a restaurant with fine cuisine and housemade condiments. In these places, the emphasis is on food that is fresh, local and (often) organic. Think ten-mile diet. If the food was any fresher, it would still be growing.
Newer wineries are of course smaller, and often sport cheeky names like the Golden Beaver or Dirty Laundry — which latter celebrates an entrepreneurial Chinese labourer who quit the Canadian Pacific Railway and opened a laundry with a lucrative brothel upstairs. Then there are longtime locals who have stayed small for their own reasons. The Gehringer Brothers winery, for example, displays something like 35 linear feet of medals and awards all around its tasting room, yet continues to produce small lots of finely crafted wines, especially dessert wines.
Tastings are educational, and so are the tours that some wineries offer. The Sumac Ridge tour answered a few questions that wine drinkers might have. Red wine usually costs more than white wine because red wines are more expensive to make. White wines undergo cold fermentation and may stay only a few months in expensive ($600 - $1000) oak barrels. Red wines require hot fermentation and daily stirring, and can stay in oak barrels for 18 months. Each barrel is good for 4 or 5 batches of red wine and then usually is so coated inside that it must be discarded.
But each winery has its own methods and special techniques. Summerhill winery really does store all its wines beneath a purpose-built concrete pyramid for at least 30 days, before offering them for sale.
Okanagan towns range in size from 143,000 (Kelowna) to 5000 (Peachland). Each has a distinct personality, and not just in the beaches, which may be rocky, pebbly, coarse or fine sand. Naramata still appeals to people who prize serenity. Large-ish Kelowna might be the main reason that Conservative Stockwell Day is the local MP, but the brochure for the south Okanagan, including tiny Osoyoos, Oliver, and others, boasts about their "progressive communities".
Summer temperatures in the desert town of Osoyoos may reach into the 40s. Among the 5,000 people who live there are two kinds of Indian communities: the indigenous Nk'Mip (Inkameep) band, and South Asian families. Fruit farm after fruit farm displays names like Dhaliwal, Sidhu, Dhillon, and Gill; and it's not unusual to see women walking along the road wearing shalwar kameez (tunic and loose pants). "Small town hospitality, big city diversity" says the sign on the Best Western Hotel's Indian restaurant.
The Nk'Mip reserve boasts the first aboriginal winery in Canada, and much more. Its tasting room and wineshop sit at one end of a large complex called "Spirit Ridge" which includes a resort with swimming pools and restaurants, timeshare condos, a spa offering relaxation treatments based on aboriginal traditions, and a Desert Cultural Centre with the world's only tagging-and-tracking program for rattlesnakes.
At first glance, it seems that a person who has money and enjoys wine could happily spend a lifetime in the Okanagan, meandering from one wineshop to the next, noshing at bistros and imagining they're in Tuscany or the south of France. Indeed, the area's economy depends largely on tourism and on attracting retirees, who appreciate the mild climate and aren't necessarily looking for jobs. But not all aspects of life in the Valley offer the same untroubled beauty as the roses that grow at the base of many vineyard rows.
Access to water is a key concern. While the arid climate moderates the temperatures — even in scorching heat, you can find some relief just by stepping into the shade — agriculture places heavy demands on the nearby lakes and rivers. Everywhere, unirrigated vegetation tends to be brown and dry as tinder. Kelowna suffered a huge fire in 2003; just last year, West Kelowna residents miraculously managed to put out a forest fire that jumped across the highway into a residential district. And the small town of Summerland has experienced a number of water emergencies in the past few years, despite water conservation measures and programs.
The people who pick those luscious fruits earn paltry piecework wages — a minimum of $15.60 per filled 800-pound bin of apples, for example. The BC government estimates that most newbies earn the equivalent of $8 an hour. The main form of cheap housing in the area is trailer parks, and several workers may share one trailer.
For farmworkers, getting to work can be hazardous. Last spring, three farm workers died in a traffic accident involving a van that the Crown Prosecutor charged was unsafe. The employer simply folded the company and never paid the $70,000 fine levied by the Workers' Compensation Board. Jageet Sidhu, husband of one of the workers who died, called for a public inquiry into the reason the Crown did not pursue another 33 criminal charges recommended by the RCMP.
Unemployment runs between 6 and 7 percent in the Okanagan, up to 8 percent at times. Even with new condos going up all over the area, housing prices are on a par with much bigger cities. Medical centres are everywhere, but the only real hospital is in Kelowna. Homeless men are quite visible in parks and on the road. Hotels display signs warning to be careful about security, and gated communities are not uncommon. Motorcyclists love the winding, climbing roads. Many wear Harley Davidson insignia. We saw one biker wearing Hell's Angels colours.
A hot issue these days is a proposal to create a new national park in the prime grape-growing southern region, where the Nk'Mip band already occupies a major chunk of available land. Many wineries and farms in the prime grape-producing area now sport "For sale" signs. A local source suggested that the big "NO NATIONAL PARK" roadside signs were probably posted by hunters. Although many wineries sponsor and promote environmental causes, the proposal causes an obvious conflict for them. And it's not at all clear how a national park would mesh with land claims by the resident Salish First Nations.
Still, on a hot summer day, with the sun glinting off a lake, rose fragrances wafting by on a breeze that gently stirs the grape leaves, a chilled glass of fresh crisp bubbly in one hand and a ripe peach in the other, a person would be hard pressed to quibble with the sign outside one Okanagan hotel that says, "Welcome to Paradise".
Penney Kome is an award-winning author and journalist who has published six books with major publishers. She is also the Editor of Straight Goods.
References
BC Federation of Labour calls for action on unsafe vans
Fruit picking work conditions and wages
